We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
Hi there, my name is Kara. I am a writer, mother, life coach, and friend who will send you ridiculous thrifted gifts (beware). I am a flaneuse who’s never met a leaf or tree she did not like, a turtle worshipper and peeper of neighborhood deer. I like to write about the places where life happens, which we are sometimes told are not the ‘real’ story. In some ways, we are advised not to show these parts of ourselves, for fear of being labeled inadequate. Think: the hurricane that is domestic life. Think: motherhood, real personhood, being a force of nature when some might prefer you to be a Barbie doll. Think: true investment in the tiny, sacred bits of your life. Think: decomposition. Think: wild mushrooms. Think: the whole truth, shadow work, acceptance of all that life holds including the raw and the messy and the untamed, furious bits.
In some ways, this newsletter could be a novel called WTF Middle Age? like Where’d You Go, Bernadette? without the cute cover art or a blurb by Jonathan Franzen (or plot about running away to a research station in Antarctica). I have an MFA in fiction and years of profiling artists under my belt, but in 2021, I was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor which was attended by miracle workers in a long ass surgery. I recently underwent a second surgery to remove the remaining part. Fingers crossed, most of that debacle is behind me, but the experience has been a bit of a taser for me. It inspired me to turn the camera on myself, to explore things I may have missed in my previous decades on the earth.
Hi, it’s me. I’m the main character here.
This newsletter is a volume tool, helping me hear my own voice in a culture that can be pretty effin’ loud. It’s a form of witnessing my days and reminding myself how connected we all are. It’s a playground exploring things that bring me joy and anxiety, and the kind of wisdom that only comes from paying attention.
I believe it’s also a necessary correction for gender issues, since activities and roles traditionally coded as “female” are given less credence in our culture. This misogyny hurts us all. As someone parenting in a female body, it has certainly hurt me. I want to talk about it, explore it, reclaim these softer spaces. I believe we genuinely need them, each of us, and I want to do my part normalizing them. In a way, I want to mother us all, so we can be a little nicer to ourselves and each other.
I write about creativity because I need it to stay sane. I also write about relationships, parenting, progress, healing, things I’m “failing” at, pop culture, film, music, books, and why I own too many geese figurines. My hope is that this excavation inspires and heals, helping us all land more softly in our hearts.
I am also a certified Wayfinder Life Coach and studied under the tutelage of Martha Beck. If you are navigating steep changes and desire help hearing your inner wisdom, feel free to reach out at karanorman@yahoo.com to learn more about my services or to set up a complimentary call to discuss how I can help. My style of coaching is gently playful while also deeply attuned and focuses on issues of self-esteem, artistic pursuits, middle-age healing, and honoring the person you are meant to be.
If you find yourself in the middle of a painful struggle (or even at the start of one), here is how Martha Beck explains what she calls the change cycle, and what others might call initiations, and circles of death and rebirth. These are normal parts of life but not ones for which many of our cultures have a lot of language. I’ve been through A LOT of these cycles and I deeply believe in them for health and spiritual wellness, not to mention just plain feeling better at the end of suffering. This is among the reasons I trained as a life coach. Most of us need a little help walking these long, sometimes lonely roads, and I like to be a fairy in the trees along the way.
To find more of my writing, go here. For an explanation of my other blog’s untidy, Sanskrit-heavy name, go here. For some of my fiction, go here.
You can also subscribe to this newsletter. It will be fun, I promise.
Thank you for being with me on this wild, perplexing, colorful, mysterious passage we call life. I truly believe we have all the answers we need inside. Sometimes, however, we need each other in order to find them. Thank you for being in the audience as I tap out tendrils of language, trying to hear my own song.
Heart emoji, deer emoji,
Kara
P.S. Am I on Instagram? Kind of! @karaunderaspell
